TropTrea
New member
Deadmeat or Tom
I partly agree with a lot you wrote. But there is lot that happened in the years you need to kee an eye on as besides what you listed.
Actualy going back to about 15 years when I had a brick and mrter store till about 10 years ago the industry made some big changes. Firt off hard goods started comming in from overseas and big box chain stores started thriving. The quality of hard goods actualy went down as did prices. The average store could not afford to stock a brand of skimmers in 5 sizes running from $200 to $1,000 a piece that were quality US products. The interent hit people and often the big "wholesalers" were selling hard goods for less than what the LFS could sell them at, since he could not afford to by cases of each size skimmer to get a big price break.
Then the hobbiest also changed. Instead of the average reefer having a 30 to 75 gallon reef he went to 120 gallon tanks with additional tanks to grow his own corals and frags. He was in it for the fun so if he sold a frag or small coral for $10.00 he was happy. Mean while the LFS was paying $15 for a coral and bought a box full of them with usualy half of them so drab that they would unsaleable. He had his overhead and needed to mak a proofit to suport his family so the corals had to sell at $45.00. But with the hobbiest also selling them at $5.00 the sales slowly dropped.
To give you some idea I regularly talk with a wholesaler of dry goods. In 1997 he had roughly 120 stores that he supplied within a 100 mile area from his shop. In 2002 he still had about a 100 in that same area but his total monthly sales were 1/3 of what they were 1997. As of 2010 he had only 17 stores left in that 100 mile radius and now expanded to a 300 mile radius with under 50 stores he supplies. Out of those 17 stores in his old area 11 were in business in 1997 while 6 are new stores that popped up within the last 3 years. So basicly in the last 13 years over 90 % of the smaller shops have had to shut down.
Sure there are hobbiest usualy operating out of the basements and garages usualy illegaly today. But those moving in Brick buildings with Neon signs are often finding that turnng a profit nearly imposible today, when you calculate all your true expenses that you did not realize when it was basement hobby..
I partly agree with a lot you wrote. But there is lot that happened in the years you need to kee an eye on as besides what you listed.
Actualy going back to about 15 years when I had a brick and mrter store till about 10 years ago the industry made some big changes. Firt off hard goods started comming in from overseas and big box chain stores started thriving. The quality of hard goods actualy went down as did prices. The average store could not afford to stock a brand of skimmers in 5 sizes running from $200 to $1,000 a piece that were quality US products. The interent hit people and often the big "wholesalers" were selling hard goods for less than what the LFS could sell them at, since he could not afford to by cases of each size skimmer to get a big price break.
Then the hobbiest also changed. Instead of the average reefer having a 30 to 75 gallon reef he went to 120 gallon tanks with additional tanks to grow his own corals and frags. He was in it for the fun so if he sold a frag or small coral for $10.00 he was happy. Mean while the LFS was paying $15 for a coral and bought a box full of them with usualy half of them so drab that they would unsaleable. He had his overhead and needed to mak a proofit to suport his family so the corals had to sell at $45.00. But with the hobbiest also selling them at $5.00 the sales slowly dropped.
To give you some idea I regularly talk with a wholesaler of dry goods. In 1997 he had roughly 120 stores that he supplied within a 100 mile area from his shop. In 2002 he still had about a 100 in that same area but his total monthly sales were 1/3 of what they were 1997. As of 2010 he had only 17 stores left in that 100 mile radius and now expanded to a 300 mile radius with under 50 stores he supplies. Out of those 17 stores in his old area 11 were in business in 1997 while 6 are new stores that popped up within the last 3 years. So basicly in the last 13 years over 90 % of the smaller shops have had to shut down.
Sure there are hobbiest usualy operating out of the basements and garages usualy illegaly today. But those moving in Brick buildings with Neon signs are often finding that turnng a profit nearly imposible today, when you calculate all your true expenses that you did not realize when it was basement hobby..
